


This Life Makes No Sense

by roebling



Series: Hippie AU [1]
Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, One Shot, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-24
Updated: 2009-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roebling/pseuds/roebling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer followed Ryan to NYC because he knew Ryan couldn't make it on his own, and he couldn't make it without Ryan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Life Makes No Sense

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a Hippie!AU universe.

It was a horror of heat and squalor in the basement level of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. August, and the air was perfumed with the particular odor of fried food and dirty socks. It was like walking into a gym bag. Spencer's stomach churned. Fifty-two hours by bus from Vegas was enough to give anyone a weak stomach. He hadn't eaten since Denver, a day and a half ago, and that had just been two packs of trail mix from a vending machine.

OK, so he didn't know where he was going, and he didn't know how to get there. All he had was an address scribbled on a piece of lined notebook paper: 80 43rd Avenue, #3, but that might as well have been in Chinese, for all the good it did him. He couldn't find Time Square on a map if you paid him to. Upstairs in the book store, he spent twenty minutes with his nose in a road atlas of the five boroughs. 43rd Avenue was in Queens. On the little map it seemed impossibly far. He couldn't walk; he would need to take the subway.

Downstairs again, first the MetroCard machine couldn't read his debit card, then it wouldn't take his five dollar bill. He ended up crouched on the ground, rubbing the crumby five flat with the sole of his shoe. Still, the machine spat it back at him. He frowned, miserable and hungry and tired, but not defeated. An old woman in a shabby fox stole gave him a crisp five dollar bill in exchange; he was amazed that she was still standing, wearing fur in the heat. He felt like he might pass out.

He took the shuttle to Time Square and caught the 7 train there. The subway station was a miserable warren of low, tiled hallways. He wasn't a yokel; he'd grown up in Vegas, spent plenty of time on the strip, but the press of people was awful. All the seats on the train were taken; Spencer stood, his duffel bag in his hand. It was heavy enough that his shoulder ached.

He had thought he'd attract more attention: he was four days off fifteen years old and he was all alone. He wasn't like Ryan, who could project unfriendliness at will. He was fourteen years old and he looked younger and he'd never been out of Nevada without his parents before. When the man at the bus station downtown had taken his fare and given him a Greyhound ticket to New York City, it had seemed like a minor miracle. Here kids half his age navigated the subway with nonchalance and ease.

He clung to the pole and tried not to be nervous, but he was. It was a relief when the train emerged from the dark pointless underground out into the hot sunshine. Three Hispanic men played guitars and sang a song in Spanish. When they were done one held out his felt cowboy hat. A few people dropped in some change. One man gave his little daughter a dollar to hand to the musician. He took it and bowed with a flourish.

Spencer took the train five stops and got off at 40th Street. There were apartment buildings and stores, and children ran across the sidewalk. A woman leaned far out of her open window and called to someone in the street. Spencer had to ask someone to point him towards 43rd Avenue. After a few blocks his back was sweaty and he was tempted to stop and get a bottle of soda but all the stores looked dingy. He had to save his money, anyway.

80 43rd Avenue was a four story building with a gray brick facade. Faded floral curtains hung in the windows of the ground floor apartment; they reminded Spencer of his grandmother. It looked like the kind of place a grandmother could live, which made Spencer glad. He had been worried. A pot of electric pink geraniums bloomed beside the door. He walked up the step and rang the bell for apartment number three. A moment later, the buzzer sounded, and he let himself inside.

The walls were wood-paneled and dark, but it was clean. Spencer went up two winding flights of stairs, a little breathless by the end. He rapped on the door, sharp one-two. The lock turned over, and there was Ryan.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, frowning. "Spencer, you can't be here."

Spencer could frown with the best of them.

"What made you think you could go and leave me alone?" he said. His cheeks burned red. He'd held his tongue for a long time, feigned excitement on Ryan's behalf, but he had always expected Ryan to admit he couldn't go if Spencer stayed behind.

Ryan started to shut the door but Spencer stuck his foot in to stop it from closing.

"Seriously," he said. "What did you think I was going to do without you? How did you think you were going to manage without me?"

Ryan stepped back and Spencer stepped inside. He wrapped his arms around Ryan's narrow shoulders and pressed his face into Ryan's neck. He would never have hugged Ryan back in Summerlin, but he had come two thousand miles in two days and that changed everything.

"I don't know what I would have done," Ryan said quietly. "I'm glad you're here."

Ryan stood at the Formica counter and made Spencer a tuna fish sandwich on slightly stale rye bread. It wasn't that good but Spencer was so hungry he didn't care. He was careful not to eat too fast, chewing deliberately between each bite. They drank water from the tap in chipped mugs; it tasted like chlorine, but Ryan said he wouldn't notice after a few days. Spencer washed his plate and put it in the drying rack next to the sink. Ryan said they could watch television. They sat on the musty sofa with a hideous brown and yellow afghan drawn over their knees. Ryan couldn't settle on a channel. Spencer pressed tight against him without asking if it was okay. He couldn't pay attention to the television; he listened to the traffic noises from outside and jumped every time a siren sang out somewhere in the night.

He tried to keep his eyes open but he couldn't. His head tipped, jerked up, and tipped again. Ryan noticed eventually.

"Should have said you were falling asleep, dumbass," he mumbled. He reached over and softly pushed Spencer's bangs out of his eyes.

"Sorry," Spencer said. Always, from the time Spencer was in third grade and his mother finally let Ryan sleep over, they had competed to see who could stay up latest; Spencer almost always lost. Drowsing heavily, curled into Ryan's side, Spencer was as comfortable as worn-in sneakers. "Couldn't sleep on the bus."

"You took a bus?" Ryan asked. He'd flown. His skin was pale and gray, and he looked the same as he ever had. "Idiot."

"Yeah," Spencer said. "Can't buy a plane ticket in cash. You know that." His eyes were closed and the conversation was swathed in somnolence.

"Let's go to bed," Ryan said, tugging Spencer up by the hand.

The bedroom was barely big enough for the bed. Ryan's suitcases were stacked at the foot. He opened the top one and dug out a pair of sweatpants.

Spencer thought about offering to sleep on the couch; they didn't share a bed so much anymore, not since it was obvious they were both edging backwards out of childhood. But Ryan didn't say anything, just tugged off his shirt. His back was soft except where his spine jutted, sharp. Spencer untied his shoes and slid them off and undid the button on his jeans. Ryan folded back the covers on the bed, just like Spencer's mom always had, and then climbed in. Spencer climbed in after. There was a tense moment while they held themselves apart -- arms stiff at their sides, backs militarily straight -- then Spencer snorted and rolled onto his belly and edged across the space that separated them to wrap his arms around Ryan's bare belly. Sleepy like this, he was lax and soft. His hand came to rest on the back of Spencer's neck, his thumb rubbing his top vertebrae gently.

"Happy birthday," Spencer said, so quiet.

Then they slept.

They stayed with Ryan's cousin (actually his mom's cousin, a man named Seth in his mid-thirties who had a pale, vacant stare and studied Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center) for four months. Ryan went to school each morning in a blazer and khaki pants and a tie. Spencer mocked him at first but Ryan often came home vibrant with secret excitement, and Spencer saw that he loved the school, loved the world it had revealed to him. His scholarship for Dramatic Writing required him to participate in a seminar that went to off-Broadway shows. For these trips he wore his good sweater and his good slacks and at night when he and Spencer lay tucked in bed he retold the plots of the shows he'd seen.

It was harder for Spencer; he wasn't in school and for the first few weeks he wandered the neighborhood just so he could escape Ryan's cousin and his tedious conversation. He liked Queens. It was as different from the monotonous suburbs of Las Vegas as a place could be. He tried to speak Spanish to man who owned the bodega on the corner; he fumbled and embarrassed himself but the man laughed and gave him a Coke for free. It was soon clear though that he would have to find a job; Spencer had a little money, saved from birthdays and Christmases, but it was dwindling. The law said that he had to be sixteen to work, though; the only option was for him to use Ryan's birth certificate, for him to pretend to be Ryan.

He got a job running food at a restaurant in Midtown, mostly because the manager had grown up in Reno and took pity on him. His shifts started at four o'clock, and he didn't get home until three in the morning many nights. The subway in the dead of night was ominous, terrifying, but he couldn't stand paying forty dollars for a cab. The work was hard, and his shoulders and arms ached until he got used to it, but he got to eat dinner for free and on a busy night he might come home with a hundred and fifty dollars cash in his pocket. They started eating cheap food: oatmeal and ramen and rice and beans, and buying toiletries at the dollar store. Spencer was able to save almost everything he earned.

They moved to a tiny, tiny studio in Long Island City right after the first of January. They were both underage and had no guarantor, no real proof of employment, so they were subletting from a harried, hip guy in his twenties who said he was going to Honduras for ten months. They didn't care and they didn't want to know more. When he handed over the keys, Ryan squeezed Spencer's hand so tight that his fingers turned red. The place was furnished with shitty Ikea furniture and smelled undeniably like cat piss, but it was their apartment and that was all that mattered.

Things got better after that. They were closer to Ryan's school and to Spencer's job, and Long Island City was a little more exciting than Woodside had been. Ryan sometimes stayed after school on days when Spencer worked and hung out with his classmates. Spencer said he was glad, and he was glad, but it still made his stomach ache a little, because he was working five, six days a week and Ryan still hadn't found a job, said he didn't have time with all the homework he was assigned. He had to maintain a three point five grade point average in order for his scholarship to be renewed. But that was the choice that Spencer had made, coming out here. He just dealt with it. He was friendly with some of the waitresses at work, and when they invited him out drinking with them after their shifts were over, he started to say yes sometimes. The first time, he was almost sure that he would get turned away at the door; he was only fifteen, after all. But the bouncer just waved them in, his attention focused on the tiny blue screen of his cellphone.

It probably didn't hurt that Spencer had both gotten taller and lost weight since he'd come to New York; he'd put off buying new pants for a pretty long time but when his socks started showing beneath the cuffs Ryan had insisted. They'd gone to nearly all the Goodwill stores in Manhattan, looking for a pair of jeans that was cheap enough but wouldn't make Spencer look too much like he'd stepped out of an 80s sitcom. The softness that had plagued him since he hit puberty was fading a little, and if he didn't shave every day his chin and cheeks were shaded with stubble. He was only fifteen but in most of the important ways he felt a lot older, and people treated him older, too.

In April of that year, Ryan joined a band. It was a four piece: drums, bass, and two guitars. Ryan sang and played guitar. They practiced in an enormous loft on the Upper West Side that was owned by one of the boy's fathers. On Saturday and Sunday, practice was in the morning, and Spencer went with Ryan and sat Indian style against the wall, watching the guys play. They were pretty bad. Ryan was taking vocal lessons as an elective at school, and his voice was much better than it had been those few times they'd tried to start something with Trevor and Brent back in Vegas, but still, they were not good. Spencer usually worked Friday nights so he slept through some of those early morning practices, drowsing in the bright clean sunlight that fell through the vast picture windows, Ryan's hoodie for a pillow.

It was possible that he slept because it made his heart twist to see Ryan playing with his new friends from school, when all they'd ever talked about was starting a band of their own. Spencer missed the feel of drumsticks and the sharp clatter of the cymbals and he missed most of all being part of something with Ryan, something clearly defined and indelible.

So things were good and much better than they had been at first, but in a lot of ways they were strange. Ryan had talked about getting two beds or bunk beds or something after they moved but there was never really exactly enough money and they never did. They slept together in the same bed. Spencer was glad when he got home well after midnight that he could slide under the covers and be enveloped in the steamy warm heat of Ryan's body. He was like a little furnace. It wasn't awkward, anyway, not after all this time. Spencer had come to expect Ryan's head on the pillow next to his when he woke. They slept beside each other every night, but nothing more than that.

Spencer thought about it sometimes. He'd made out with one of the waitresses a few times when they'd gone out, drunk and tired and just so glad for the feeling of someone anchoring him place that he didn't care who it was. Her name was Ariel and she was a freshman at FIT and sweet and a little plump, with dark hair. Spencer liked her a lot but the more he thought about it the more he was fairly sure that he'd never like any girl quite enough, not in that way. Ariel seemed to know that too, and didn't care. She had a boyfriend who Spencer heard lots about when she made him come shoe shopping with her. He didn't talk to her about Ryan, even though more and more often he noticed the pale undersides of Ryan's wrists and the soft curl in his hair when he didn't flat-iron it. He wondered what kissing Ryan would be like, and in the shower before he went to work he jerked off thinking about Ryan's lips and eyes and pale, narrow waist.

Ariel left the restaurant where Spencer worked and got a job someplace else. Two weeks after she started there she told Spencer that the manager loved her and she was sure she could get him a job serving. He went downtown to Ariel's new restaurant and filled out an application. He put his real name and a fake date of birth and nobody questioned it, even though he said he was twenty. He was hired, and now when he got his paychecks they were in his own name, not Ryan's. He liked it so much better than his old job. On a busy weekend night he could make three hundred or four hundred dollars. He had dreaded having to talk to the customers, having to pretend to be interested in them, but if he thought about it like a game he found it easy. He was actually a pretty good waiter. He liked the customers in the Village better; they were sophisticated New Yorkers, not loud, demanding tourists. He made enough money that he only had to work four nights a week and two lunches, and his back didn't ache as badly when he got off his shift.

Ryan's band broke up with the end of the school year; the bassist and the drummer were summering in Italy, and the other guitarist was graduating and going to Yale. Ryan moped around for a few weeks, a permanent fixture on their couch, no matter what time Spencer got home from work. Spencer had to wear black slacks, a black button down shirt, and a black tie to the restaurant. He was careful with his work clothes so that he didn't have to replace them too often. The first week of June was stiflingly hot and he felt suffocated by the dirty air and the noise and the horrible monotony of the subway and the streets. By the time he turned the lock on the front door and fell inside, terrible anxiety was making his chest seize. He got this way sometimes, when everything seemed like too much of a burden for him to shoulder, but there wasn't really anyone who could make it easier, so he kept his mouth shut.

He undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt and kicked off his pants and poured a glass of water from the Brita pitcher in the fridge. He closed his eyes and chugged the whole thing, and when he opened them and set the glass down he saw that Ryan was not asleep as he'd thought but awake and watching him.

They lived in a three hundred square foot studio, so of course they saw each other naked all the time. Still, this was different, and Spencer felt awkward in his old boxer briefs with the elastic starting to come out of the waistband.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Ryan said. "How was work?"

"Good," Spencer said. "I waited on that guy from Saturday Night Live, you know ... the Vincent Price guy."

Ryan shook his head. He didn't watch much television any more. There was a library book open on his lap. "Dunno who," he said sleepily.

"Sorry if I woke you up," Spencer said.

"No," Ryan said. "It's too hot to sleep. I was waiting up for you."

The tightness in Spencer's chest disappeared, like a taut rubber band let loose. "Oh," he said. "Oh. Thanks."

"Sure," Ryan said, and he yawned wide enough to show all his molars. Spencer was not convinced that he hadn't woken him as he came in.

"So," Spencer said, and he paused because he was nervous for reasons that didn't make any sense. "So, I was checking Craigslist on the computer at work today and I've probably got enough money saved that I could buy a used drum kit."

Ryan frowned. "Spencer, what are you talking ..."

"The band," Spencer said. "Our band. We should do it. We could."

Ryan leaned back and the hem of his tee shirt lifted so that Spencer could see his bellybutton. He was reminded suddenly that he was nearly naked. Despite the heat, his skin prickled.

"Where would we keep them? There's not enough room ..."

"We could rent a practice space," Spencer said. "I checked it out. We could do a time share thing so we have it a few nights a week, and we could keep the drums there."

"You really want to do this," Ryan said, but it was a half a question.

"Duh," Spencer said. "Why do you think I followed you most of the way across the country, moron?" He smiled wryly, like Ryan was an idiot for not thinking of it, even though the band was barely a fraction of the true reason he'd come to New York. He'd come for Ryan. He'd come because the prospect of life without Ryan was unendurable and bleak.

Ryan's eyes got wide, like they did when he was excited. "I was going to wait to tell you after I got paid, but I got a job tutoring, so I can help with the money," he said quickly. "I mean, I want to help with that kind of stuff more. It hasn't been fair that you've had to --"

"I don't mind," Spencer said. "I've never minded." He had, many times, but he could forgive Ryan. He would always forgive Ryan. "So, tutoring," he said, barely not laughing. He remember Ryan helping him with his English homework in sixth grade; Ryan was too impatient and thought that everyone understood everything just like he did, even though he made language sing and to Spencer it was all just plain, boring words. "Who are you tutoring?"

Ryan blushed, and his ears went red. "Second graders," he said. "It's through school. I'm helping them learn to read. Twenty five hours a week at eleven bucks an hour for the whole summer." He smiled proudly after he said that.

"Shit, seriously?" Spencer said. He did the math quickly in his head. "Maybe we wouldn't even have to share a practice space." He beamed and jumped over the back of the couch. The springs groaned. "I want to do this," he said. "I really want to do this."

He was sitting a little too close to Ryan, so their knees brushed, and for the first time he was strangely aware of the heat of Ryan's skin against his own, a curious frisson that he hadn't felt before. Outside, a cat yowled. Ryan huffed out a little laugh. It seemed like it would be the perfect moment for Spencer to lean across the couch cushion that separated them and kiss him. It seemed possible even that Ryan would press forward, and his mouth would open, and his lashes would flutter.

He didn't, though, because still in his heart he feared that Ryan would recoil.

A silent moment passed and then Spencer asked, "What are you reading?"

Ryan smiled softly. "A Book of Nonsense," he said.

"That bad?" Spencer asked, grinning.

"No, no," Ryan said. "That's the title. I'll read you some of it ..."

They laid on their bed on top of the covers and Ryan read Spencer poems in a quiet singsong voice until they both got tired and the book fell out of Ryan's hand and they were asleep.

Spencer found a used Yamaha kit on the internet and placed a call. They went down to check it out the next day. It cost eight hundred bucks, which was more than he wanted to spend, but it was in good shape. It was worth it. It wasn't all of their savings, even if it was more than half. It was definitely worth it. They took a cab back to Queens and Spencer set the kit up in their apartment, shoving the couch up against the bed and playing until their asshole of a neighbor next door pounded on the wall and hollered for him to be goddamn quiet.

They rented a tiny practice space in Astoria, and they spent as much time there as they could. Ryan had notebooks full of lyrics, and together they started to turn those lyrics into songs. It was just the two of them; they never talked about finding a bass player or another guitarist -- they didn't need anyone else, couldn't trust anyone else. It was a hot summer and each day seemed to contain more than the ordinary number of hours. Each morning Ryan read the newspaper aloud over breakfasts of toast and jam and strong coffee, and on the rare day when neither had to work they went to Central Park and slept in the sun. The grass was lettuce green and the sky was swimming pool blue and it was like nothing else. But those days were few. Spencer picked up any spare shifts he was offered, because with the rent on the practice space thing were tight, even with the money Ryan brought in. He repeated over and over again that it was worth it.

In August Ryan turned seventeen and four days later Spencer turned sixteen and it didn't matter at all because he had been pretending to be older for so long that he really felt older. Sometimes he forgot he was sixteen altogether. He couldn't imagine what it would be like if he were back in Summerlin, starting his Junior year at Palo Verde, getting picked up after school by his mother and going to the skate park on the weekends. That life seemed infinitely far away. He signed up to take a GED review class at BMCC, because he figured he ought to at least have his degree. Ryan paid for it; that was his birthday present. Spencer bought Ryan a beautiful brocade vest lined in silk that he'd admired in the window of a vintage store on Lafayette Street. It was too expensive, but anything would have been more than they could afford and the look on Ryan's face when he tore the newspaper off the box and saw what was inside was validation enough.

Ryan was back in school. He could only tutor in the afternoons. The last weekend in September they moved, taking a room in a three bedroom in Astoria, closer to the practice space. The other roommates were in their late twenties and rarely around. That was fine; it was just for convenience. It cost two hundred dollars a month less than the studio had. Spencer got a second job waiting tables at a local bar a couple of days a week. He never made much money but it was only a ten minute walk from the apartment. They didn't have much time to practice, only nights when Spencer didn't have to work in the city and weekend days. Still, the songs were coming along.

The funny thing was that they really, really were. All those times they'd fooled around in his grandmother's garage in Summerlin, nothing had ever really suggested that they'd be able to make this work. Now, though, Ryan's words and his melodies and Spencer's beats were coming together, thrilling and whole. The music was different, calmer in some ways, just Ryan's acoustic guitar, sharp and plaintive, and Spencer's drums, but it was good music. Ryan listened to a lot of different stuff now, talked about music using sophisticated language Spencer didn't always understand. Sometimes, Spencer knew, he went to shows in tiny crowded bars in the LES. Spencer could always tell, because on those nights when he climbed into bed after work, Ryan's hair was perfumed like cigarette smoke and his breath smelled beery. Sometimes he talked about local bands that Spencer had never seen, probably would never seen, because the shows were on Friday and Saturday usually and those were the busiest days at the restuarant. Still, Spencer's whole week was covered in a pall that lifted only when he sat down behind his kit. Ryan felt the same, he was pretty sure, because he was happier than Spencer had ever seen him.

After a practice that had gone especially well, they sat on the fire escape. It was October and cool. Ryan was swaddled in an ugly lime and yellow blanket. They passed back and forth a mug of hot chocolate; it was watery because they didn't have milk, but Spencer got the packets for free from work when they got close to the expiration date.

"We should play out somewhere," Spencer said.

"You think?" Ryan asked, his eyes dark. He looked especially pale, and there was a little hot chocolate on his upper lip.

"Yeah," Spencer said. "I do. We're good. I think we're really good, Ry."

"We are," Ryan said, no doubt in his voice. "I just want to be sure we're ready."

"I think we're ready," Spencer said.

"No," Ryan said. "But almost. We need a name."

Spencer smiled. "You haven't thought of one yet?"

When they were kids Ryan came up with band names compulsively, and kept a long running list in the back of his binder. He shifted, looked away. Clouds blew swiftly across the dark sky. Manhattan glowed in the distance. There were never any stars, and Spencer had learned to stop looking. He poked Ryan in the shoulder. "Tell me," he said, wheedling.

"It's dumb," Ryan said.

"Come on!" Spencer said.

"Fine," Ryan said. "You know how the night you found your set I read you that poem? That's what gave me the idea."

"What's the idea?" Spencer said. Ryan could play this game for hours.

He hummed a little and then said, "Ah ... Hive of Bees."

Spencer turned the name over, said it aloud to himself. It seemed like it could work, but ... "I don't get it," he said.

Ryan closed his eyes. "It's 'cause, like, bees are symbols of hard work, but they're not working for themselves, you know? Like each member is just doing its part for the whole hive. One bee is just like, a bug, but together they're something a lot greater." He fell silent. "Kinda like us, I thought."

"Oh," Spencer said.

A police siren roared somewhere very near by, and Ryan jumped. Spencer put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Are you calling me a bug?" he said, after a moment.

Ryan punched him in the side. "Asshole," he said, happily.

The weather turned cold; even after a year, they both had desert-thin blood and clung together at night. The heat in the new apartment worked fitfully. Ryan spent a week freaking out about a reading of one of his plays. The restaurant was short on staff and Spencer had to pick up a few extra shifts. He worked two doubles in a row and was more tired than he'd ever been in his entire life. It rained often and the sky was gray.

They played their first show the week after Halloween, opening for The Bang Zoom, who were, according to Ryan, clearly the best band on the scene right now. Spencer had worked the night before, but nerves and coffee made him jittery. Ryan wanted them to look professional, so he wore one of his button-ups from work and his nicest pair of pants. Ryan wore his school uniform, but with his vest instead of the lame school blazer. It was clear immediately that they were the youngest people in the entire place by several years, but Ryan played it very cool. He introduced Spencer to any number of people who seemed to be his very good friends.

There was no time for a soundcheck, and they only played five songs, but it didn't go awfully. Nobody booed and by the end people were standing in front of the stage watching. There was sporadic applause as Ryan announced that they'd be playing the following week. Afterwards, Ryan stood at the bar surrounded by a congratulatory circle of admirers, drinking a martini. He glowed and gleamed, basking in the attention. Spencer let the bartender get him a beer, but it went down sour. He sat at the bar, feeling his age like he hadn't in a long time. He laid his aching head on the bar and stayed there all through the Bang Zoom's set, until Ryan shook him and told him it was time to go.

It seemed like the world was starting to fray a little. Spencer was nearly always exhausted, and carried a bottle of aspirin in his bag. They played every week. He took and passed his GED in December, but didn't tell Ryan until Ryan asked if he'd gotten the results back. After that, they spent two days avoiding each other as well as they could, considering they lived together. Spencer bought Ryan a quart of soy ice cream on the way home from work the next night, though, because he was a vegan now and he missed dairy badly, and he was forgiven then, but he knew Ryan didn't forget, because he didn't either. The apartment felt too small. Spencer came home from work one night to find the coverlet smooth, the bed empty. Ryan wasn't there. It was three in the morning. He called his cell, but it went unanswered. He thought he ought to sit up, but he was too tired. Every part of him hurt in a different way, and Ryan hadn't answered his call, so he slept.

The crowds got bigger. Each week, more people came. They played other shows, sometimes, opened for other bands and played showcases and wrote more songs. It was happening so fast. Pitchfork reported on one of the shows where they opened for Phantom Planet, and said complimentary things, and you couldn't have paid Ryan enough to make him shut up about it. That was another thing: Ryan had friends now. Sometimes when he came home after school, he brought people with him, and they sat in the living room and drank beer and laughed. It was an open secret that he was still in high school; everyone knew, but nobody cared. Spencer was always welcome. They went to the parties together, but most often Spencer stood in the corner at those clubs and bars and apartments on the Bowery, struggling tried to feel anything particular other than weariness, and depending on how ridiculous the crowd was, disgust. It wasn't like high school, wasn't like the few parties they'd gone to together in Vegas before Ryan had fled. Spencer had felt his own unease acutely there, felt out of place and geeky. He was welcome here; girls tried to flirt with him sometimes, even if not so many as tried to flirt with Ryan, and all of Ryan's friends always said hello and even made conversation, but he struggled to care.

Ryan was very happy, which was some consolation, and every night they still slept together in their bed.

Christmas that year was hard, because Spencer couldn't work so much now that they were playing a few gigs a week, and Ryan was only tutoring two afternoons a week. They had to pay a guy to drive their equipment to the shows now, and he didn't ask for much but it wasn't nothing. Spencer had insisted he didn't want Ryan to get him anything, and Ryan had reluctantly agreed. The other roommates, never more than ghostly presences they encountered in the mornings or late at night anyway, had gone to their respective homes, wherever that might have been. The cold was intense that week, and they slept on the couch because the living room was warmer. They didn't have a tree. Spencer worked Christmas Eve, which was good because the tips were especially generous and they closed early. The restaurant let the staff take home all the poinsettias wrapped in foil that had decorated the dining room. The city was silent and solemn. Spencer blinked back tears as he walked up Fifth Avenue towards Union Square. He had never felt so alone in his whole life. The streetlights and all the Christmas lights twinkled.

Ryan stood waiting at the door when Spencer got home. If you listened, you could hear when someone was coming up the stairs.

"Merry Christmas," he said, smiling.

"Merry Christmas," Spencer said.

Ryan had made dinner and kept it warm and waiting: instant mashed potatoes and a Tofurky roast and cranberry sauce from a can. They ate on mismatched plates in the living room, watching the old version of Frosty the Snowman on TV. Then they slept, Spencer's arms wrapped around Ryan's ribs.

They woke the next morning and Spencer heated up frozen waffles. Ryan plucked all the brown leaves from the poinsettia. They fell back asleep on the couch after breakfast. It was a painful day to be awake.

Later, Ryan said, "I know we said no presents, but ..." He handed Spencer his cellphone. Spencer frowned, but took it. Whatever number Ryan had dialed, it was ringing.

"Hello?" he said.

"Oh my god," someone said on the other end of the line. It was his mom. Spencer throat closed and he couldn't stop the tears that rolled down his cheek.

"Hi Mom," he said, voice small.

She was crying too hard to talk, and that made Spencer sob. He heard his father on the other end of the line, whispering to his mother, taking the phone.

"Kiddo," his dad said, lightly. "How are you?"

Spencer struggled to find his voice.

Ryan sat across the room, legs crossed, arms folded. His eyes were dry, and the expression on his face was exactly halfway between a smile and a frown.

Spencer's parents gave up their attempts to get him to come home pretty quickly, which was good, because Spencer wasn't going anywhere, and he didn't want to go another year without speaking to them. He couldn't. His heart would break in two. He promised he'd come visit, when he could, and he'd call regularly, and that was enough for them. They didn't talk about how he'd vanished, didn't talk about how long he'd been gone, or why he'd waited so long to call. He could never, never tell them that it was Ryan who'd brought them back together, because he knew they blamed Ryan for taking him from them, which was as far from the truth as anything could possibly be. It was good, but his heart ached because he knew that he could never give Ryan what Ryan had given him. Ryan's father was a drunk. The last they'd heard, he'd sold the house in Vegas and moved, and not left a forwarding address.

Two weeks after that, Spencer got home from work and Ryan was making out with Alex from Phantom Planet in the living room. Alex was twenty six and very pretentious and of all of Ryan's friends, Spencer liked him the least. The first time they'd met, Alex had looked him up and down, an expression on his face like he'd smelled something nasty, and said, "So you're the little drummer boy."

He'd worked three nights in a row but when he opened the door and saw them on the couch, his first instinct was to turn and run down the stairs as fast as he could. Ryan's shirt was off, and his skin looked like spilled cream. Alex's dark hair hung over his shoulders like a cape. They didn't look up until Spencer shut the door, and then both did, at once, startled.

"Hey," Ryan said, slowly. "How was work?"

"Hiya, Spence," Alex said, and he smiled.

"Hi," Spencer said, and he went to their room and locked the door. There was an awful evil feeling twisting in his guts. He was tired but on edge. Sleep eluded him. He lay in bed listening to Ryan's iPod until the battery died, and after that, although he strained to hear, there was nothing but silence and dark.

Phantom Planet played at Webster Hall and Hive of Bees was opening. They had two new songs they were going to debut, new songs Ryan had worked at and fretted over and still wasn't sure about. They were different. He'd been listening to the Grateful Dead and to Fall Out Boy, and these weren't the same kind of concise pop songs Ryan had written before. Before the show Ryan hung out in the dressing room with the guys from Phantom. He drank to mask his nerves, but Spencer could tell anyway. He was nervous too. Alex sat beside Ryan, his long legs stretched out. His arm snaked along the top of the couch, millimeters from Ryan's neck. Spencer stayed until he couldn't stand it, and then he went and dithered around backstage, annoying the techs and mostly being in the way.

It was the biggest crowd they'd ever played for. They stood side stage as the lights dimmed and listened to the audience simmer. Ryan reached and took Spencer's hand and squeezed. Spencer swallowed away his doubt, and squeezed back. For a brief moment he thought that he might turn and press a soft kiss to Ryan's cheek, but he hesitated too long and they were given their cue. Ryan let go of his hand and walked on stage.

They had never played as well as they played that night. The audience called for an encore. They'd brought a hundred copies of the demo they'd recorded, copies they'd burned one by one on in the computer lab at Ryan's school, and they sold all of them. Ryan was elated, and threw his arms around Spencer's shoulders. They both drank too much and went with the other band to a party at a hotel. The press of bodies was intense. Spencer sweated through his tee shirt. It was freezing cold, but the party moved out onto a roof deck. The city was adorned with sparkling light. Spencer was talking to three girls who knew who he was, although he didn't know who they were. A neighbor called the police, and they were made to clear out. All the happy young people filed sheepishly into the street, and then milled there until the police made them disburse.

Ryan found him. He was pale and sweaty but grinning. Their breath made little clouds. Spencer was glad, until Alex loomed out of the dark and laid a hand on Ryan's shoulder.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

Ryan blinked. "Yeah," he said, and they turned and started to walk down the sidewalk.

"Where are you going?" Spencer called, starting after them.

Ryan looked back over his shoulder and shook his head sharply. "Back to Alex's," he said, frowning. "I'll call you in the morning."

Spencer took a deep breath. The freezing air seized in his throat. Alex slid an arm around Ryan's shoulder. They walked to the corner and stood there until a taxi swerved to a stop in front of them. They got in, and they were gone.

He could go home and lay alone in their bed until morning, waiting for Ryan's call. His head ached and that was an attractive option. He could wait. He'd spent years waiting. He could bear the burden of one more night.

He could bear the burden, but the evil feeling was back, churning up his stomach, and he didn't want to bear it. He wanted to cry. He wanted to go home, wanted crawl back to his parents' house and lay in his childhood bed and sob until the pillow was wet with his warm tears. He wanted a friend who would listen, who would agree that what Ryan had done was unfair and unkind. He wanted any sympathetic ear. He shivered so hard his teeth ached. There was nobody, though. The only person he'd ever trusted like that had been Ryan, and it was Ryan that had betrayed him.

What he did was press back into the thick of the crowd, until he ran smack into a guy he recognized but didn't know. The guy smiled at him in an easy way and something inside Spencer slipped, like oh, he'd known it could be so easy, even for him, but he hadn't known. After all he'd spent so long being Ryan's friend (fat, annoying little sidekick) that sometimes he forgot it was his, too. It was at least as much his band as it was Ryan's, and he'd worked at least as hard. Harder, if he were honest, and he never complained or said a word or spoke a whisper of how he longed ... He'd earned this ease, at least, even if he didn't want it.

The nice guy's smile was slipping. Spencer was taking too long, always a step behind, but there was nobody to pull him up, this time, so he smiled, quick and bright. That was all that was needed. They went to another bar and drank margaritas. The salt burned. Spencer never found his jacket, but the guy wrapped his arms around Spencer. It didn't do much to keep him warm but it was a nice gesture. Spencer couldn't remember the guy's name, but it would have been rude to ask, since they'd already made out, Spencer pressed hard against the bar, big hands steady on his hips. It didn't really matter, anyway.

They made out in the cab, Spencer tracing the smooth surface of the guy's teeth with the tip of his tongue, pulling his lip into his mouth and biting down. They flew up avenues. The city was an abstract blur. The driver glared furiously at them and screamed into his phone in a language that could have been English or might not have been: either way, it was unintelligible. They threw bills at him, more than enough to cover the fare and soothe his offended sensibilities, and tumbled onto the sidewalk. The guy pulled Spencer to his feet. He was awfully tall, taller by several inches than Spencer, who wasn't short anymore at all. They clung and they laughed, and it was easy.

His apartment was on the third floor, and the stairs seemed as daunting as Everest. Reaching the top was a feat of endurance, not made easier by the guy's fingers slipping under Spencer's shirt. The guy fumbled for his keys, and Spencer spied the name on the mailbox: G. Saporta. The name didn't mean anything to him. Inside the door, G. Saporta pushed Spencer's shirt up and off, and Spencer was drunk enough that he almost forgot to worry. He'd never been naked with anyone, not like this. He wanted to stop, wanted to apologize for a body that was still probably too soft and very imperfect, apologize that he'd never done this because he'd been saving himself. That sounded so ridiculous even inside his head that Spencer couldn't help but laugh. G. Saporta stopped worrying the button on his jeans and looked up, questioning.

"Nothing," Spencer said, smiling and looking up through his lashes. "Sorry. C'mon."

It was a good time, and G. Saporta must have assumed any hesitance was a consequence of being almost fall-down drunk, because he said nothing about that. He stretched Spencer slowly, almost too cautious, fingers pressing just inside, slick and cool enough at first to make electricity run up his spine. They did that until Spencer was hard against the sheets, and then G. Saporta lifted one of his legs up, in a way that Spencer hadn't known his legs could move, and hooked it over his shoulder. He leaned down and nipped the soft inside of Spencer's thigh, and he pushed slowly in. It was a lot, but it wasn't too much, and Spencer rolled his hips back after a few seconds of acclimation, eager for more pressure, more sensation.

After, they lay in the wide bed and Spencer smoked the cigarette he was offered, blowing smoke rings like Ryan had taught him to. He was tired and the buzz from the beer was wearing off and he thought maybe he should be more concerned. He'd lost his virginity to a man whose name he didn't entirely know, which seemed kind of huge, but in reality it hadn't been anything other than fast and sloppy and good and Spencer felt stupid about waiting so long and assuming that it would mean so much, because it didn't. If he never saw G. Saporta again, he wouldn't cry or freak out or rue this decision.

The next morning, they got hash browns and shitty coffee and G. Saporta walked him to the train. His name was Gabe, Spencer remembered belatedly, as he waved and headed down the stairs into the subway.

He'd see Gabe around, or maybe he wouldn't. Either way.

Ryan sitting at the kitchen table when Spencer got home, a glass of orange juice half drunk in front of him.

He looked up and smiled so sweetly that Spencer's heart thawed in an instant. All the fight went out of him.

"Last night was amazing," Ryan said, not asking where Spencer'd been or what he'd been doing.

"It was," Spencer said. He knew what Ryan meant; it wasn't Alex he was talking about. Alex didn't matter. Phantom Planet would go back out on tour and they'd forget each other, and Spencer and Ryan would still be together, still two parts of one whole. Ryan had known it all along, probably.

"I know," Ryan said. "You know what Alex told me?"

Spencer swallowed, fighting the wave of jealousy that engulfed him.

"Pete Wentz was in the audience last night. He came to see us play."

"Holy shit," Spencer said.

"Yeah," Ryan said, voice hush.

"This is really happening," Spencer said. It had been happening and it kept going, like a train gaining speed. They were going to headline their own shows, and buy their own van, and tour, and maybe they'd record an album for real. All of that seemed possible now. Everything that he had dreamed of on that long, terrible bus ride from Las Vegas seemed within his reach, except perhaps one thing -- the most important.

"Yeah," Ryan said. "Did you ever think it wouldn't? You gotta trust me."

"I do trust you," Spencer said, a little too vehement.

Ryan smiled, and stared at the table. "I know," he said. The clock ticked audibly.

Spencer got a glass from the cupboard and some aspirin from the medicine cabinet. His throat hurt when he swallowed. He looked up. Ryan was staring. When their eyes met, Spencer felt he might never be able to look away.

"Hey, sorry I left last night ..." Ryan said, too quickly.

Spencer smiled, tight and quick and clean. "No sweat, dude. It was nothing."


End file.
